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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Source claims Gambino crime family will name Franky Boy its new boss

The Gambino crime family is set to name Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali as its new godfather.

Cali — a native New Yorker who traces his roots
firmly to Sicily — is to be secretly anointed as the next head of the
nation’s largest La Cosa Nostra organization, sources told DNAinfo New York.

The sources say Cali’s ascent from underboss is
imminent and will put him in complete control of the Mafia family that
has 750 members and associates and was once ruled by the likes of John
“The Dapper Don” Gotti and the group's infamous namesake, Carlo Gambino.

A top New York City law enforcement source said
the Gambino capos continue to look up to Cali, 48, because of his
old-school approach to running a massive crime family, his adherence to
traditional Mafia values, personal family ties that stretch across the
Atlantic to Italy and his insistence that members maintain a low
profile.

The latter continues a break with the flashy, headline-grabbing era marked by Gotti, whose visage once graced the cover of Time magazine. Gotti died of throat cancer in prison in 2002.

Sources say the current boss, Domenico
"Greaseball" Cefalu, 76, is a native Sicilian with a long history of
heroin smuggling and several stints in prison. He is stepping aside to
allow his younger protege to take the reins of the family's lucrative
gambling, loansharking and construction rackets.

"The family believes Cali is more dynamic and that
Cefalu has become too laid back . . . and that's not what a money
making organization wants," another law enforcement source said.

Cali got his start in the mob by running a fruit
store on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn called Arcobaleno, which means
"rainbow" in Italian. The feds say it doubled as a front for criminal
activities.

His parents immigrated to Brooklyn from Palermo,
Italy. He eventually married into mob royalty when he wed the daughter
of one of the Inzerillos, who are known as one of the Mafia powerhouses
in Italy.

He is also a nephew of John and Joseph Gambino,
who are influential hoods connected to the famous “Pizza Connection”
drug trafficking case of the 1980s.

Cali made his bones under the Gottis while operating in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey.

According to the FBI, he officially became the
Gambino "ambassador to the Sicilian Mafia" and a rising star when Gotti
and Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano roamed the city, ruling rackets and
murdering dozens of people.

In 2008, Cali and scores of other hoods were
arrested in a massive drug and racketeering investigation dubbed
"Operation Old Bridge" that centered on extortion of a Staten Island
trucking executive who became an FBI wire-wearing informant.

The case also involved planned NASCAR races on the island. Cali pleaded guilty to racketeering charges and spent a year in jail.

“The Gambinos like Cali because of his low-key
profile and old-school values,” a law enforcement source said. “The
family wants to keep things that way."

Over the past several decades, and thanks to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, the
feds have severely reduced the influence of the Gambinos and the other
four crime families over the past decade, breaking their grip on the
billion-dollar labor union and construction industries.

But the mob has remained strong in traditional
money-making operations involving gambling, loansharking and
prostitution, law enforcement authorities say.